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User blog:Ruhrohshingo/Challenge Arena Tips
Challenge Arena can be anywhere between intriguing, irritating, and monotonous; but there are some things you can count on or at least consider to go farther than you might have initially thought. Here are some things to consider for the Challenge Arena: General Advice *You've probably seen the general pattern, but at the start of the CA season most of your reset matches at first (with the grassy background) will be against fairly weak opponents and very forgiving battle conditions. The battle conditions get more stringent and opponent level increases as you win matches and ultimately culminates with a bonus chest containing either Silver or Golden CA coins (extra Rainbow coins were removed). Once you get the bonus chest, the difficulty "resets" to a degree. *In very long CA stints over the course of one day, the difficulty "reset" after each bonus chest becomes less forgiving. In Rookie League it's entirely possible to face level 200+ opponents with nasty battle conditions like Empty BB Gauge Start. Fortunately, this only happens once you're ranking in toward Tier 10 or "higher". *Semira is a very good friend. A Semira of any rarity is a useful asset with even just a BB since any of the conditions that can be inflicted will greatly reduce the effectiveness of the opponent's formation. Paralysis is obviously the best status to inflict, but Curse can be very useful in the event of matches like Empty Brave Burst Gauge Start since it will reduce the number of enemies who could potentially BB if they fill gauges sooner than your formation. Poison is not incredibly desirable as it robs you of gaining any HC and significantly less BC than if your formation had attacked the following turn. *'Order definitely matters!' A lot of people probably already know that ordering in PvE will affect what BB/SBB effects will be in place in what order and timing of Spark, but ordering of formation is also an important thing to consider for CA as well. The CA formation will always use the topmost character first (or when making the formation before battle, the leftmost slot). Use this absolute ordering to plan out how BB/SBBs will flow similarly to considering your ordering of execution in PvE. For example, it'd be smarter to place a character like Duran whose BB/SBB will boost BB gauge as the last character under the presumption all or some of the characters attacking him before him will use BB/SBB. Or conversely, you could place Duran first hoping he'll BB/SBB and boost the gauges of the characters after him without BB/SBB and therefore make it likely the subsequent characters will also BB/SBB. *The best defense is a good offense...and the best offense is a good offense. It might be tempting to use certain leads that offer HP and Def boost, but the latter isn't very helpful in CA as damage mitigation based on Def still isn't very good (in PvE it's roughly 3 Def mitigates 1 Atk). Unless you are dealing with the risk of Opponent Strikes First, your best probabilistic bet is to hit the enemy as hard as you can with the hope/expectation that 2+ characters will go down. If you consider things this way, by having less than a full formation of enemies to retaliate you actually will sustain less damage unless the remaining characters all happen to attack the same character. Leads that buff Atk and HP (or all stats for that matter) are very desirable for this reason. *Spheres are not applied to either party, so you can ignore their effects. As a side effect, sphere requiring Extra Skills will not activate either. *Elgif Extra Skills are not applied in CA. *HP Boosts from Extra Skills appear to be applied separately from Lead Skill or battle conditions that grant boosts. *Always take a few seconds to examine your opponent's Lead character and their skill's effects (unless No Lead Skill is in place). *Try to avoid placing Healers/Supports into formations unless there is an advantage in place they can use. I've found that Healers/Supports tend to not BB at all and more rarely SBB. Placing a character like 6 star+ Aurelia in during safer matches to build up SBB is only recommended if you really need a safe "back up" plan to heal that doesn't use potions. Even so, I'd recommend using characters like Ivris or Krantz since their BB and SBB will damage and heal, respectively. *Weigh the risks carefully if you are facing a mono-Light or Dark (or even heavily composed thereof) formations. Recall that the elemental advantage AND disadvantage are simultaneously applied for those elements (i.e.: Light does more damage to Dark, but receives more from Dark at the same time and vice versa). Rookie League *If it's the start of a new CA season rotation and you're leveled sufficiently, you can get by after a few "warm up" rounds with a small team with a higher Brave Bonus to rack up points much quicker than playing it safe. *Try to focus the first matches of each daily reset on building a large stock of characters that can at least BB. *If you're finding your mid- to high-powered characters are taking damage, try to place one or two of them in the formation during "safe" matches; which are typically those with the grassy knoll background (and have gentler battle conditions). BB/SBB will generate more BC and HC, which makes healing characters without using potions fairly easy and reliable. *In Rookie League you basically have nothing to lose, so don't worry about putting strong characters in formation as long as your multiplier stays at or above 1.00x. Summoner League *When getting promoted from Rookie you don't need to worry about Opponent Strikes First too much. I have actually gone up several tiers without encountering it - it seems to start cropping up at Tier 16 and on. Take it with a grain of salt. *Don't spend too much time fretting over "What if Opponent Strikes First". But that said, do be more conservative with your formations. I balance things out considering which characters are essential to win, but which ones are also expendable. Spending the early matches (up to about the 2nd bonus chest) to build up a wide variety of characters who can BB is a good way to improve your odds. *When facing very high level opponents with unfavorable battle conditions, consider the benefits of putting out a squad that can deal significant damage and lose then approach the match again with a squad that will certainly win. Sometimes strategic losses are necessary. Battle Conditions This section will discuss general strategies for mitigating or using the various Battle Conditions that are applied each match. Though largely League agnostic, it's better to read this section being cognizant of any difficulties discrepancies of your current league standing. '-X Element Advantage': These are usually very nice to have unless the element advantage happens to be an element that the opponent formation predominantly has. At worse, this would be something like "Water Element Advantage" and the opposing formation is a mono water squad. Element advantage most noticeably gives all characters (friend and foe) a max HP boost, but this also boosts all their other stats as well. If you get this condition, don't forego mitigating elemental disadvantages (such as going at a mono Thunder formation with a mono Water squad just because it's Water Element Advantage) - this is only feasible if the enemy formation is mono and weak to the element with the advantage or the formation is neutral to the advantaged element. '-Gendered Advantage': This is probably the most friendly condition in CA since it allows use of formations built around characters like Hadaron, Krantz, Haile, Quaid, Michele, and any of the Elemental Legends characters (Selena, Atro, etc.) that can fully utilize the advantage without sacrificing any Leader Skill requirements. An example of this would be a Male Unit Advantage using a Krantz lead and filling in the rest of the formation with characters like Tridon, Rhoa, Avant, and Duran to satisfy his Leader Skill requirement. Gendered Advantage has the same effect as Elemental Advantage - the gender (or lack of) with the advantage gets a boost to all stats. In terms of mitigating advantage when the opponent has it, you can offset it by playing characters of the advantaged gender but with elemental superiority. '-No Brave Burst': This sounds like a death sentence, but in later matches or intermediary matches this is actually really useful. At higher tiers this effect can be useful since it gives you less to consider in the event the opponent strikes first; which if no one can BB on either side, your squad can't be wiped out in the first turn. No BB condition is also useful when you are trying to build a full bench of characters who can BB since often times using a formation of 3 of 5 characters with BB and 2 with partial or empty BB will have lopsided results - like only having BB for everyone or at worst, you end the match with 3 of 5 characters with SBB or even BB. No BB is really only harmful when you are facing Hadaron lead because the first turn usually ends up with the enemy formation losing one or two (maybe 3 or 4 if you are outclassing their formation that much) characters and some of the others injured. When the enemy gets their first turn it'll usually hurt very very much for you and the subsequent turns become an increasingly uphill struggle as the Hadaron LS boosts their attack and defense as they take more damage. In this situation, there is no really good way to cut your losses. '-Empty Brave Burst Gauge Start:' This, to me, is the worst possible condition though some people see it as BB waiting to happen, it's also a race to the top to see who BB's first and likely takes the match. This particular condition is really nasty in Summoner League up since the Opponent Strikes First can really be disadvanteous. Your best bet may be to use a lead whose LS will either boost BB on attack/spark/critical or boost BB when damage taken or even fill rate like Bestie. However you can get characters who can BB faster and in larger quantity (and thus higher probability), the better. '-No Leader Skill: '''Not a huge impact on the match. No Lead Skill is probably the closest thing to an "even match" as CA allows. In these matches it's usually best to form a party that will sweep in one turn as there is nothing shielding your party from any damage taken (e.g. HP boosts from Lead Skill). If anything, characters that mitigate (Tridon, Krantz, Aaron, Dolk, etc.) or cause Injury/Paralysis/Curse are recommended to curb any risk if the enemy formation survives the first turn. '-Atk Parameter Halved: A condition that is actually very convenient for you if you have a Lead that boosts Atk significantly (Semira for Dark/Light, Ciara for all but Dark/Light, Krantz/Quiad/Michele for rainbow formations, etc.). With the offset to attack combined with the buff, your party's attack stays somewhere close to or above without any buffs. If the enemy formation doesn't have a Lead with attack boosting properties, their counterattacks will be extremely weak - especially when mitigation is in place. Desirable Characters A brief breakdown of characters that are very useful in CA as leads. I don't really talk about any characters I don't have and therefore have no practical experience with. '''-Krantz: I talk about this guy a lot because he's insanely useful. His Lead Skill fulfills a lot: immense attack buff and significant HP boost to entire party when rolling rainbow squad. His BB adds mitigation and SBB will heal on top of that. Personally, I love using a mostly rainbow squad most of the time in CA because it minimizes elemental disadvantage. '-Ciara:' While her Lead doesn't have an HP boosting property, the 120% boost to attack for all elements but Light and Dark means even weaker characters can deal significant damage. Ciara is also very useful when not Lead since her Extra Skill adds HP absorption allowing her to heal herself during battle. -'Nadore': Kind of like a flip-flop Hadaron of sorts. I would really only recommend using her when you go in with a formation that is either full health or close to as the lower health you have the smaller the attack boost and higher the defense boost. She also adds an HP boost. Most of the time I use her is when I face a mono-squad and lead off with Nadore and fill the rest of the formation in with elements with the advantage. '-Zenia:' She's like a weaker, all-encompassing Ciara. While her attack boost effect is weaker, it affects all elements. Zenia leads as opponents can be very annoying to deal with since even HP boosts do little to offset the damage that gets done. This just gets more annoying when you start dealing with Opponent Strikes First situations or no BB matches. As a squad member, she's useful to place near the top in order since her SBB will buff everyone's BB/SBB power making it more likely to wipe out the enemy with only a few BB/SBBs. '-Libera:' Similar BB/SBB power advantage Zenia provides but as a Lead Skill. Meaning you can make Libera a lead, but place her anywhere in the squad. Sadly she has no stat boosting properties. '-Gazia:' Super annoying since high level players like to lead with him and his stat boosting and damage reduction effects. Usually you'll see a formation like Gazia, Ultor, Zedus, Hadaron, Andaria with some variations plugging in Tridon, Quaid, Shera, Krantz, or Libera. '-Hadaron:' Obviously. That said, I don't particularly like running Hadaron in matches until I need a "skirt by" ticket. Basically I'll plug him in for dealing with opponent Hadaron or Gazia leads where the battle condition is extremely unfavorable. Unlike almost all other units, Hadaron and company in formation only get more difficult the more they get pummeled. This is really the only effect that will put you on close to even ground against an opponent Hadaron lead (as most of the time those matches are No BB or Empty BB - you'll be extremely lucky to face a Hadaron lead with No Leader Skill). More to come... Closing Comments By no means am I an expert on this - these are just the things I have noticed and the strategies that have worked very well for me (at least to the point where I see CA daily as more of a boring chore than anything, but those rewards...le sigh). If you have a better strategy, share it so we can all learn something! Category:Blog posts